CLASS XXII. ORDER XIII. 399 



concealed within them. The fertile flowers have a proper peri- 

 anth, which coalesces with the germ and forms a small, roundish 

 berry, with two or three seeds, covered on its outer surface with 

 a bright blue powder. The wood of the Red Cedar is light and 

 very durable. It constitutes an excellent material for posts, to 

 which use it is commonly appropriated Avith us. The leaves re- 

 semble Savin in their medicinal properties, and are particularly 

 used as a topical stimulant. 



JuNiPERus CoMMONUNis. Commoii Juniper. 



American Medical Botany, PI. xliv. 



Leav^es ternate, spreading, mucronate, longer than 

 the beny. 



Variety depressa. Stems prostrate. 

 Syn. JuNiPERus repens. Nuit. 



The Juniper is with us always a shrub, never rising into a 

 tree. The stems are prostrate, rooting, and forming large beds. 

 The tips of the branches are smooth and angular. Leaves in 

 threes, linear-acerose, sharply mucronate, shining green on their 

 lower surface, but with a broad glaucous line through the centre 

 of the upper. The leaves always resupinate, and turn their 

 upper surface toward the ground. The barren flowers grow in 

 small axillary aments, with roundish, acute, stipitate scales, 

 inclosing several anthers. The fertile flowers, growing on a 

 separate shrub, have a small three parted calyx growing to the 

 germ ; and three styles. The fruit is a fleshy, roundish, oblong 

 berry, of a dark purplish color, formed of the germ and con- 

 fluent calyx, marked with three prominences or vesicles at top, 

 and containing three seeds. It requires two seasons to arrive 

 at maturity from the flower. — In dry woods, Roxbury, Brookline. 



411. TAXUS. 

 Taxus Canadensis. Willd. Dwarf Yew. 



Leaves linear, two ranked, revolute at the edge; 

 receptacles of the barren flowers globose. 

 Syn. Taxus baccata, minor. Mx. 

 A low, spreading shrub, known in Maine by the name of 



